Front wheel side suspensions, which have an anti-dive geometry, and rear wheel side suspensions, which have an anti-lift geometry, are well known in the art to limit pitching of the vehicle, which occurs during a braking period of applying brakes. With such front and rear wheel side suspensions, an anti-dive effect, which limits diving of a vehicle body (a phenomenon of sinking of a front side of the vehicle body) during the braking period, and an anti-lift effect, which limits lifting of the vehicle body (a phenomenon of floating of a rear side of the vehicle body) during the braking period, are implemented, so that the pitching is limited. Hereinafter, the terms “anti-dive” and “anti-lift” may also be collectively referred to as “anti-pitching”.
It is conceivable to adapt an anti-pitching geometry, which shows the large anti-pitching effect for the brake force applied to the vehicle wheels, to increase a degree of limiting the pitching. However, when the anti-pitching geometry, which shows an excessively large anti-pitching effect, is adapted, a degree of conducting a vehicle's front-to-rear directional force, which is initially applied to ground contact points of the vehicle wheels (tires) at the time of driving the vehicle on, for example, a rough road, to the vehicle body is increased as a vertical force. This may result in deterioration of the ride feeling of an occupant(s) of the vehicle. In other words, the ride feeling of the occupant(s) is deteriorated during the time of driving the vehicle without applying the brakes (non-braking period).
Thereby, it is required to adapt the anti-pitching geometry, which does not show the large anti-pitching effect, to maintain the good ride feeling of the occupant(s) during the non-braking period and which effectively limits the pitching during the braking period. In view of this, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H11-151921 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H06-64436, strokes and locations of suspension components, which define the anti-pitching geometry, are changed during the braking period to increase the anti-pitching effect of the anti-pitching geometry. In this way, the pitching is effectively limited during the braking period while maintain the good ride feeling of the occupant(s) during the non-braking period.
However, in the systems described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H11-151921 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H06-64436, the strokes and the locations of the suspension components are changed during the braking period, and thereby a dedicated mechanism for implementing this needs to be installed in the suspensions. This will disadvantageously increase the manufacturing costs and deteriorate the installability of the system to the vehicle and manufacturability of the system.